A guard tower near the perimeter of a California prison. (Photo: Joseph Sohm, via Shutterstock)Under a 2022-23 state budget, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is launching a process to close prisons and deactivate facilities within others. One on the chopping block is Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe, a city of 18,000, in eastern Riverside County, that is closing in March 2025.
Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. (Photo: Rendon's Twitter feed.)Timing is crucial in politics, and the battle over the Assembly speakership is no exception. The clock is ticking. If Rendon continues through the end of the current two-year session, then any change in the speakership will be decided in the next session, following the November elections, when all 80 Assembly seats are up for election.
Employees on the job at a Santa Barbara restaurant. (Photo: Ruben M Ramos, via Shutterstock)California’s growth of nonfarm payroll jobs continued on a steady pace as 2021 ended, according to recent figures from the state Employment Development Department that do not fully reflect the impact of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. “The 50,000 gain in the labor force was encouraging in December and certainly included more women,” economist Lynn Reaser told Capitol Weekly.
A pipette and receptacles used in stem cell research. (Photo: CI Photos)The talk at the California stem cell agency this week was of ”boiling the ocean,” the meaning of “unlikely” and “DEI.” All of which involves how $5.5 billion in taxpayer dollars will be used over the next decade or so.
A young girl plays in the rain. (Photo: Falon Koontz)Despite the fierce rains and deadly mudslides that have struck California, water officials are concerned about the possibility of a renewed drought. But they caution that is too early to tell.
AN electric car takes juice at the L.A. Auto Show. (Photo: Juan Camilo Barnal)A hasty attempt to boost electric vehicle sales in California – an idea the governor likes – died in the final days of the legislative session amid intense lobbying and fast-approaching deadlines.
A state review of a dental program that serves low-income Californians shows that significantly fewer dentists are accepting those patients, despite a surge in demand. According to the California Department of Health Care Services report, released July 1, the number of dentists accepting Medi-Cal patients fell by 14.5 percent between 2008 and 2013. That’s a loss of 1,354 providers for the Denti-Cal program, which is the dental portion of Medi-Cal.
The push back from schools hit with a huge CalSTRS rate increase, expected to be an additional $3.7 billion a year when fully phased in, is not that it’s unaffordable and will hurt students or unfairly lets the state and teachers off the hook. Instead, a coalition of school districts, including the giant Los Angeles Unified School District, wants a separate budget item for the CalSTRS rate increase within Proposition 98.
The apparent suicide last week of Alfred Villalobos, who faced a bribery trial next month, is a sad end for a former CalPERS board member paid more than $50 million by firms seeking money from the big pension fund. Most of his fees came from private equity firms during the years leading up to the financial crisis in 2008. Some call the period private equity’s “golden years,” when leveraged buyouts of corporations yielded huge profits.
Property theft in California increased in the first year of correctional realignment, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California highlighting the policy’s possible effect on future crime rates. Under realignment, the state shifted responsibilities to the counties — including the incarceration of some state prisoners — and gave them money to cover the costs.